


Promises, Promises

by EmmmaMmmm



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew Minyard Has Feelings, Broken Promises, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Introspection, M/M, Post-Canon, Potentially OOC, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27788884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmmaMmmm/pseuds/EmmmaMmmm
Summary: Andrew Minyard has a complicated relationship with promises.
Relationships: Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard, Kevin Day & Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 1
Kudos: 91





	Promises, Promises

**Author's Note:**

> okay so first of all, my sleeping pattenr is a little fucked at the moment so instead of doing my assignements like i should be doing, i have decided to to the dumb thing and write fanfiction. because clearly i value my future on this degree. :)
> 
> this is just a short little piece really, i think maybe a little out of character? but thats unclear bc canon is from neil's point of view anyway so... who knows? either way, it's very unedited and probably not as good as some of my other stuff but i'm mildly sleep deprived and very homesick so like, be nice? not that yall aren't usually nice (which i really do appreciate yo) but yanno
> 
> No explicit language in this one as far as I can remember (except for in this note... my bad), but implied/referenced r*pe and implied/referenced child abuse.

The first foster home that Andrew remembered, they promised his social worker that they would love and protect him, that this would be his forever home because they were willing to put in the effort, and they promised to do so as well.

He was gone within a month and a half.

The second foster home that he remembered, they promised his social worker that no harm would come to him while he was there. He thought, maybe this time, they’ll keep their stupid promises. He was six and he just wanted to be safe.

When he left there a year later, he was covered in bruises and he hated the word please.

When he arrived at the Spears, Cass made all sorts of promises – promises of protection, of love, of affection. Richard and Drake made promises too. But all three’s promises were soon tinged with blood and bruises and a pain in his ass that ran red when he tried to clean it in the shower. Their promises were burned to ash along with the shed, and when they were in the rearview mirror, he swore to himself that he could never believe another person’s promises again.

Then he met his mirror image, and maybe it was stupid of him but he made another promise and believed in it, just one. This time he promised protection, and all he wanted in return was somebody that wouldn’t leave, that would finally be good for him and to him. A brother.

Andrew kept his promise with a car that swerved off the road and crashed into a tree. Aaron broke his promise with wandering eyes and a cheerleader that declared that she would love Aaron forever. He scared her off, and Aaron hated him, and that was fine. Andrew was starting to know better.

Years and years of broken promises culminated in one thing. A promise Andrew made to himself, to never break a promise. To see it through to the end or die trying. With a brother that didn’t care and a cousin that shied away from every single one of Andrew’s jagged edges, he didn’t see that it would affect anyone if he were to die anyone. Maybe he would be a martyr. Maybe he would be an unmarked grave.

Then along came the drugs to dull his mind, and maybe that was the thing that made him stupid enough to accept a coward’s deal: protection in return for the impossible, something to build his life around. Part of him wanted to see if Kevin could do it. Part of him knew that he couldn’t. That part of him was maybe a little self-destructive, making a promise just to prove that nobody ever kept a promise. It didn’t matter anyway; he’d long since thrown away any sort of longing.

But then came a pipe dream with badly-dyed brown hair and equally obvious contacts, who kept secrets and made no secret of his secrets, who picked a lock without a second thought just to shout at somebody in French. Andrew fought it every step of the way but there was no pushing down the want that threatened to suffocate him every time he took a breath. So he drugged him into submission and felt sick doing it.

Just like them, his mind supplied, but just like with everything else, he suppressed it. He wouldn’t break his promise to protect Kevin, not even for an attractive runaway who cursed people out in French, who started fights and then ran from them.

Neil Josten, he declared one morning in September with drugs filtering through his system and German flowing through his ears, was not a threat to Kevin. Not more so than anybody else, at least, or if he was it wasn’t targeted. Part of Andrew wondered if perhaps he was letting his attraction cloud his judgement. He truly hoped not, or at least he would if hope was something the drugs allowed him to feel.

A morning came, then, in January, his mind clear of the drugs and focused on only one thing: Neil Josten, and his current state of victim of abuse. He’d been that before. So had Neil, he was sure. There wasn’t much he was sure about anymore, but one thing was abundantly clear: Neil Josten was not a hallucination. He was, however, very much a pipe dream.

A pipe dream, he realised about two months later, kissing Neil into the roof of Fox Tower and wondering if this was feeling, that was very good at kissing. A pipe dream that made very pretty sounds when he came. A pipe dream that he could never really have, and could certainly never keep. But most of all, he was a pipe dream that kept a promise. A pipe dream that broke off both sides of the promise when he needed to break it off.

And a pipe dream that disappeared and left Andrew with all these feelings. It was intolerable. It was unforgiveable. It was magnificent. If he hadn’t been so overwhelmed with the strange cocktail of fear and anger and despair that welled up inside him the minute he saw an abandoned duffel bag and a phone with a deleted countdown, he might’ve marvelled in the fact that for one beautiful, disconcerting moment, he was feeling and he was feeling strongly.

It wasn’t until he saw, as though floating outside of his body, his own hands choking Kevin Day into the ground and three of his teammates dragging him away, that he realised he was breaking his own promise towards somebody who had, ultimately, tried his best. None of that mattered. Neil Josten kept his promises, and Andrew hated him for it.

He wanted him back so that he could tell Neil to his stupid face that he hated him, that he wanted to kill him 100% of the time, or at least he wanted to do something to him 100% of the time.

Getting him back covered in burns was devastating, but he swallowed down his emotions. More devastating still was the way Neil leaned on him, the way he seemed to rely on Andrew. _Didn’t he know that his hands were covered in blood? Didn’t he know that Andrew would only cause him pain? Didn’t he know that he deserved better?_

But ten years down the line, and he still hadn’t figured that out. Andrew nuzzled into the back of his neck (though he’d deny it if anyone asked) and wondered what he’d done to find somebody who trusted him, who knew him inside and out, who kept his promises without hesitation.

Neil rolled over, blue eyes watery with sleep. “Drew? What’re you doing awake?”

“467%, Junkie.”

He curled into Andrew, brushing kisses across his knuckles. “Yeah, love you too.”

Yet another promise that Neil continued to keep.


End file.
